How Might We Build Trust Internationally

In this episode, we ask a simple question with complex answers: how do you build trust across borders, cultures, and systems?

Scott is joined by three voices with lived, global experience. Fahd shares how his teams serve families across Pakistan and the diaspora, and why trust is the real product when support is delivered from afar. Douglas reflects on leading across regions and why celebrating what is right with the world changes how we partner. Geoff brings two decades on global boards, arguing that trust starts with how we listen, engage, and follow through.

Together they cover:

• Culture, context, and why “one message fits all” fails.

• Media noise, facts, and the human habit of de-humanising “the other.”

• Practical habits that travel well: clear expectations, empathy, openness, and delivery.

• Ideas like Ubuntu, and why being there for each other builds credibility over time.

• The role of data and technology, and why human experience still decides outcomes.

If you lead teams, sell across markets, or simply want to work well with people who are not like you, this conversation will help. Listen in for practical ways to earn trust—one interaction at a time.

 

Geoff Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffsearle/

Douglas Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaslines/

Fahd Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahd-khan-406bb835/

 

 

 

Transcript - Generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate 

 

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Might We, and this time we're talking about how might we build trust internationally and at the time we are. I think that's a very interesting subject. And with me on this podcast is one of my regular guest, Jeff, another Douglas, who's been on many times and for the first time, and welcome is Fard.

Welcome to the podcast gentlemen who would like to introduce themselves first. I think Fard should introduce himself first. Okay, there we go, please, Fard. Alright, so thank you for having me, onto the podcast. my name is Fahard and I'm the CEO of, two companies. One is, Mosen and the other is Moja.

Moha is a private 9 1 1 service, or a private 9, 9, 9 service. in third world countries you typically don't have. very efficient systems, that work. So I have to make a private 9, 9 9, solution for the people of Pakistan in and through this company, we've, helped save more than 15,000 lives and, handle more than 55,000 events, globally.

The other company is Mosin Mosin, is, very relevant to the topic today because, Mosin is all about helping, expat and overseas Pakistanis look after their families back home and making sure that they're looked after safe, provided for and everything. The typical challenge that we're trying to address is, establishing trust with the people who are sitting outside of Pakistan.

They're looking for a service provider who basically look after their families like a surrogate child. So, you can imagine nobody wants to stand in unless they can trust them. So, it's very relevant to the topic today. Okay. Thank you very much and welcome. So, Douglas, do you wanna go next?

Thank you, Scott, and it's, wonderful to, to see everybody again and far just amazing, , what you're doing in that region.

And looking forward to having a conversation together today. And thank you, Scott, for including me. I said my name is Douglas Lyons. I'm a co-founder and director of IBM Group Limited based in London, and, have been so for a number of years. And Jeff and I are business partners and good friends.

As, yourself, Scott and Fahd. So I think this is a collection of amazing people, but amazing friends, with these real trusts. So really looking forward to wonderful conversation from all the perspectives this afternoon. Okay, thank you very much. And last but not least, Jeffrey. Thank you young man.

 Geoff Hudson Sill, independent non-executive director for the last 20 years on, global technology companies. senior executive, C-suite executive on both publicly listed and privately listed companies. author of seven books, regular thought leader and also, co-founder and and director with Douglas, as I said on on IBM group and group of companies.

Okay. Welcome gentlemen. we're gonna talk today about how, how do we or how might we build trust internationally, which I think with the way that's [going on, especially geopolitically, and trade wise is quite an interesting topic. And, as far as you said, even in business, how do we build trust internationally that, especially the business you are doing with.

Looking after people for expats or people abroad, and they're trusting you to deliver services and things from them, from afar, from a distance. I think, I think one of the things that we, we, so trust is a very expansive, very overreaching sort of word, but it is so fundamental in nature. It starts, from almost childbirth, where, where a child is, is, brought into the world and, he grows up in the cradle in the arms of people that he grows up trusting.

And, and when you look at children for the first four or five years of their lives, they're very trusting people. And somehow along the way. the world, sort of starts taking that away. It starts chipping away at, at all of those things. And I think one of the major things that we would wanna discuss, today is how do we raise a whole society and then, through that, create,  a system where trust can be established along all lines so that when it, when, when a child or a person finally reaches into the business realm or into, into adult life, their people, who other people can actually trust.

Interesting. I'd like the concept you said about as, as a child we basically trust and it's nearly unconditional in the amount we trust our children. or sorry, our children trust, us as parents and we trust our parents or guardians and say the experience that we have erodes that level of trust We have.

As, as human beings. Doug, what do you think? I guess it depends also how you are brought up., everyone has a different story in that regard. So trust can be broken at a very young age. Trust can be broken at a teenager level, or even, even at an adult level, right, when you think about it.

So you are engaging in different experiences, in your life journey, if you think about that. Yep. Doug, I think when you start talking about this, like to. Talk about things from a different perspective. And, you'll remember the mid nineties in business where, in England particularly you would have the queen's, expert export award for companies that were looking to export their products and services globally and internationally.

And it, there were very few companies really doing that very well. I remember working for a company that did it well, continually won this award, but it was an unusual one because it was a case of there in in England there were a lot of companies that were afraid to do international business. was never afraid of that.

And always looked to take our products and services, across country, across culture, and across boundary. When it was a very primitive thing to do, you know, we've just won a contract in United States, or we've just won a contract in Africa. We've just won a new contract in Malaysia or Japan or in China.

The, in the nineties, that wasn't really happening. And then things started to evolve. I mean, I've worked in 121 countries around the world, successfully in my career to date. enjoyed it. But what was the fascination for me was that I am English and I had the ability to be able to go cross border, cross culture.

And what you understand, even at that level in the mid nineties, was you were not going to succeed with that unless you built collaboration, unless you built trust. We are failing on those points. And if you look at, we've talked about this before, Scott, but if you think about what is the process of trust starts with effective listening.

Doug and I, you know, we do a lot around empathy mapping. We do a lot around, why you need to have, what creates a curious mind, but more importantly, what is compassion? And then when you start leading compassion, you start bringing into understanding. And then you start moving into communication, which then obviously builds outcome, which builds purpose and trust.

Now, if you start looking at what creates the curious mind, you can have as many curious minds as you want, but unless you have the ability to engage, and right now I would say we're at the worst point in the world's history for the ability to engage. Productivity issues have never been so disastrous than what they are today.

8.8 trillion at the last count with a Gallup report, which is about 11% of GDP, which is more than Amazon, apple, and Google's turnover all put together. Houston, do we have a problem? I think we have no old jokes aside, and I know Douglas has got some very strong points that he'd like to add to this, but I do think that if we look at what we were doing in the nineties, and I think it was our famous Winston Churchill.

And it was I must add this. walked into, a meeting and, they said, one of the persons said, do we have a conclusion yet on the war? And he said, well, I don't think it's gonna last more than five days. Why do you say that? Well, we've only got five bottles of RA on the side. And that would say to me that Winston wants a conclusion in five days.

And I would say right now we need a conclusion. When it comes to war, we've got massive problems. Geopolitically war is not helping trust, it's actually fragmenting our relationships, international relationships, our ability to actually communicate with others because everything is so transactional.

And you know, and I know that transactions transactional. Relationships have a very short lifespan when it comes to longevity. Anyway, I've said enough. I wanna open up now, Douglas. Mm, thank you Jeff. I was deeply reflecting on, both your comments and files as you were talking there. And I other night I was talking to,

To Monique, my wife, and we were just talking about, when we were growing up as kids, if we wanted to get something in terms of information, we would've to wait a week or two in the postman or something like that. But, we'd look at the instant nature of the way the world communicates and, we arepresident can, tweet on his own personal social media site, instantaneously before the news gets to it.

It's, it's just unbelievable. And I think it brought me back to an experience I had many years ago when I was blessed to spend some time with a, a world famous National Geographic photographer. And he had a simple philosophy in life and he said, we, we tend to focus and we look at the, the world around us and the media.

Tends to focus on very negative things. But, but he said when he took photographs and he would look at a particular picture at a distance, you saw one thing, but when you went closer, you saw something totally different. And it's to celebrate what is right with the world. and unfortunately we are in a pervasive environment where we celebrate what's wrong with the world, predominantly.

And so it tends

to be sensationalism. It tends to sell, links, clicks, ad advertising online, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's something that's. We look at, trust internationally, and it's those things that we need to be better at celebrating what's right with the world because there is a lot more good.

And I think there's a lot more good than there is bad. We just tend to overemphasize the bad. and it tends to have a voice that's much bigger than it should be. And it's how do business leaders, how do communities start to celebrate what is right with the, the world? and I think that can have a big impact on a number of things.

And, and I think coming back to FO's point is that as we, we grow up and we indoctrinate ourself in a certain way of life and we get shaped, we lose inhibition around free thinking and natural thinking because we start to be educated in a certain way and influenced in a certain way. And I think it's.

These are the types of things that, again, when we look at the role of leaders in communities and business circles, how we can make a difference is to actually start celebrating what is right with the world, what is right with doing amazing collaboration deals across borders knowing that some of these borders are complex as well.

So, just some, some thoughts from my side. I think what Douglas has just said is phenomenal. I really agree with the fact that, unfortunately, news of bad events, the type of stuff that you see the most traction for, and I've seen that happen. So, I've seen the advent of media,

From one TV channel back in the nineties to, having a full spectrum of TV channels and then having the internet boom come in into Pakistan where you have the lowest data packages. I've seen how it's eroded trust in society where, last year, 1.6 million, the record, 1.6 million people have tried to leave the country.

And, it's not, it's not, if you look at the statistics on the ground, yes, crime has picked up, but it's no different from the crime. statistics that you see in the UK for London. it's, it's no different from the crime that you see in, in New York or any of these other places. the grass is not really greener anywhere.

It's  not, the weather might be different. The weather might be more pleasant for you guys. This summer is nice for us the winter is, is something that we really look forward to. but when you look at it, brick for brick, word for word for pound, for pound, I think life everywhere has, has gone south.

And, and, Jeff made a very powerful point that, and, and I know Jeff, having been a friend of his for, it's been a privilege to be a friend of his for the past, at least 15 years now. He's always had  he's been very, very, his tolerance for risk has been very, very high.

The perceived risk has been very high he was one of the first people to come to Pakistan when Pakistan was going into an economic boom. he brought this entire team over. And one, one interesting thing that I was thinking about when, when, Jeff started speaking. So, Pakistanis have, have, like people in the subcontinent, uh, or even in the Middle East, have a very large ability to trust foreigners.

You look at any vlogger coming to Pakistan, and you'll see that the amount of hospitality that they receive is just through the roof, right? Because for some odd reason, it's, it's like we will, trust. What, what a foreigner says, especially if, if there's a little bit of a colonial, history there.

But, we, we take, take them as experts. but it's very surprising to think, that trust is a major factor for a lot of UK firms to push their business, back into these markets where, where it should be happening. it's, it's, it, it shouldn't, it shouldn't evoke conversations on trust.

Yes, it should evoke a lot of other conversations, a lot of compliant compliance and regulatory conversations. But as a Pakistani sitting in Pakistan, I've always seen that anybody coming in, who's a foreigner, Jeff, you've been here, you've seen them out of hospitality that you received in Pakistan, right?

I personally feel that the world, as connected as it has gotten to be, it has gotten very fragmented in the process. And I think the basic thing has been what Douglas said, focusing on the negatives. Well, yeah, I think so. I think you're right about, the Pakistan. I mean, look, I was very honoured to be in Pakistan at a, at a particularly interesting time of its development.

But you also remember, it wasn't just the hospitality. It was the protection that you provided for me, armed guards and four by fours and safe houses, et cetera, was, was very high, as were some of the risks. So you have to weigh that in. But also I'd say that yet from a culture perspective in the Middle East, particularly in, we're seeing it now in UAE and I'm spending quite a bit of time out there at the moment, is that, they like international knowledge, international intellect.

They want to employ international people. Funny enough I was with a very large law firm in London, recently discussing that all her clients that were racing over to Dubai to set up a business and operate out of Dubai, and now they're racing back to London. and I think can only think that people don't recognize and they need to recognize, and I think trust is a big part of this.

And I'll come back to that shortly, but culture in an environment has to be understood and you have to integrate yourself. Dubai as an example, is not an extension of London. It's Dubai, UAE. Yes, it has an international metropolis of culture, speaking expat communities, people wanting to do business, but it's still the UAE and the Middle East.

It is not London. And I think a lot of English companies have, have made that mistake. I think when it comes to trust, it's a difficult word, broadly speaking, you have to be careful as well. certain labels attached to this, the trust modelling is that, we want to rebuild trust in business.

Is is certain something that I'm seeing more of now, rather than we need to build a trust because they're feeling, don't you trust me? that we've gotta be very careful that trust is an output of cognitive behavior. But really where I look at this is it's a, it's a series of intelligences that we all possess, and it's the umbrella that encapsulates all of those.

Now, when I start talking about those intelligences, I start talking [about IQ intelligence, ] emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence for a better word, values-based intelligence, if you, if you want to call it that. Wisdom, intelligence and trust has to be the umbrella that we all carry in order us, because it's not just, your presence.

It's the way you speak. It's how you communicate. You could question how we were communicating before if you weren't, or we weren't prepared to actually listen to people meaningfully with depth. When I meet people now, it's not just a conversation. It's absolute transparency and openness and depth that we go to gives me trusted recognition straight away.

When you are only speaking at a very thin layer of discussion, you realize you've got to earn your respect and earn your respect. Now fi finally, that doesn't necessarily come from the different generations, [so the older generation understands that very well. The younger generation isn't interested. It's not like, now I want it.

Now. They don't understand that how you build. Trust and how, how that's, and more importantly, what is the importance of that? As an example, you can go for a walk in a park. It's an analogy, basic analogy. And you can walk past 'em and say, good morning, sir. Good morning madam. And  you have a lovely dog go through to a younger person.

Generally the facial expressions will be head down, headphones on, potentially, and not even interested. They were not interested in basic forms of etiquette. But you and I know that basic forms of etiquette builds a much bigger common language when it comes to culture and understanding. It's interesting and we talk about this, we started, we touched on something like the culture and said when people come over and the respects that is, the foreigners who come over, I give them, one of the best things I've heard somebody say about trust is, trust is how people experience you.

And I think if we're gonna build it internationally. Across borders is how do we project as a business or as a country, what are we projecting? And then how does, how do people experience that projection? 'cause that will influence their perception of us as a collective or as an individual. And then that's how will influence how they will respond to us.

so I think we've gotta be really mindful internationally. And it comes back to what you're saying, Doug, Jeff, sorry about the UAE and Dubai and I've spent a lot of time in and around the GCC area and every part of the GCC has its own identity. It's a bit like thinking, oh, it's all the same 'cause it's GCC, it's all the same.

'cause it's the Arab world, wherever, well, it not, Europe's not all the same. Mm-hmm. Every in. Europe has its own identity in his own way. Yes, if we can talk about that, Scott,  Doug wants. You know, that was the toughest job I ever had. I worked internationally across four or five continents for many years.

But when I took a C-suite role, in Europe, I ran 28 countries, middle East and Africa, and it was the toughest job I ever had. Integrating that and having that interconnectedness between all the countries and the office and their regions, right. Toughest job, however. We got there and we, we made it hugely successful.

But it was, it was the toughest job I had. But without the empathy, compassion, understanding of the country, the, the regional aspects, the nuances. Okay, An example of that would be we had to, we had to have different messaging for different countries in the local language, which went to the target minds of the people for the very first time and suddenly started to build credibility from that, right?

And we started to really make great headway. But it was tough. And I think, I go back to culture and, where do we look? Where do we look for trust around us? Polski, we had 80 plus elections last year, 80 plus. Massive shift in movement. All of the politicians say, I want you to trust me. But when we look at that, we would always look to government.

Trust on how we behave or even not trust, maybe respect on how we behave. Businesses are I don't trust, there's, there's a lack of trust in government, which  means that businesses have to create their own miniature cultures. for the youngsters they might look to ambassadors. So football ambassadors and, and you, you've gotta look around you and say, even in the world of sport, there is an erosion of behavior, which for really brings back the issue, well, if they can do it, we can do it.

And government, if they can behave this way, we can behave this way. And this is a big problem. And as I said, we can band the word culture. But, and we can use that as the umbrella, but there's an awful lot of fixing demand. And even at home, even at home, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, connotation, wife, husband, when one person picks up a device, the other person's thinking, well, it's eight o'clock at night.

Who are you contacting? Who are you talking to? There is still a mistrust even at home. So in my view, there's an awful lot of fixing to be done. But it's not a task that's too big because it starts today. And what we do today matters because whatever we do today will affect tomorrow.

This conversation, can get very expansive, when Scott was speaking and then when Geoff, again, from a Pakistani perspective, we've, for us to trust a foreigner, especially a britisher is easier because we've grown up on the culture that was left behind.

when I started, reading, English, in Pakistan, the lingua franca is English, your chance at upward mobility greatly increases if you can verse better in English than any other language, even the local languages, So when I started read reading, I consumed Enid blighton.

You know, the children of today can consume, Harry Potter. you know, I grew up on we, Johns captain's Big Ellsworth and Charles Dickens and whatnot, right? So for us. There was a lot of subliminal level, acceptance, for doing this., there was a lot more acceptance for us, and I, always say this, like when you come to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, you will find that having been part of the colonies, there's, because Lord McLay and, all of his attempts to basically, introduce this new culture, where the English language was superior.

Like, there's a very small example, in our, in our language, the word jamar, is the word that you use for a janitor, which isn't really like a top end job anywhere in the world, right? In the olden days, like before, the British local where, Jamar was the person who used to do all of the accounting.

So, it was a complete cultural shift. And, we got independence from the British. the Indians got independence from the British, but if you look at the Middle East, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but if it was a Pakistani doctor or a, an Indian doctor or a Bangladeshi doctor, professional, they would get 15,000 Rials or 20,000 Rials

Whereas, a Britisher would start off at 80,000 rials. And the difference in the Middle East is, they didn't get independence from you. They got independence from the Turks through you. there's a lot of, subliminal trust in this market. But if you take this conversation down to a very basic element because, and Geoff, I'll,

I'll be very clear with you on this. You just spoke about the youth and, wearing headphones and everything. I think just one generation above us, we've done something very fundamentally wrong. we've somehow subliminally, put in a programming with the children that they're not to trust the world around them.

you know, we've, we've also at a very micro level done this, like I, I see it, a lot of the people that, that sign up for our services, like, I'll give you an example. I was taking my kid, my parents out for, for ice cream and coffee at at night and, that's hard. You're talking broadly. There's four of us on the call which says 25% of us on this call today don't have children.

I. Okay, s25% of the call, I, I understand, but I'm talking about a hundred percent of my customers. II'll give you that example where, so what are you asking these? And I, I'll, I'll add one more metaphor here, and that is, if you look,I had this conversation yesterday. If you actually look at, procreation of children globally, there are less children being conceived and coming into the world, not in Pakistan.

There's just, there globally, you take, if you take all the global stats, and I'm sure if I look at Africa, that's still booming too, right? And then I look, but if you look at where, if you look at, certain countries, the figures are down. Geoff, you're absolutely right, but if you want to look at the, the growth of population, you'll soon realize that Europe is going to be largely Muslim because Muslims are procreating at a different rate than what the natives are.

Right. at some point you're going to see a very, major river. like, I, I used to say, and I say this very often, there was a time, I was telling Scott this, that I spent about six months in Shrewbury. my father was doing, his basic helicopter course, instructor pilot course in, in Shrewbury, right?

And, there was a time in England where, you used to literally have to look for places for Curry and, and all of those back in 87, 88, right? And now, you know, recently when I was in, in the uk, I did not have to speak English curry. I, I had, I had curry, I had curry last night, and I'm in North America.

 Curry is the national dish of. Yeah, it has become so, hasn't it? I love curry. what I'm trying to say is, Jeff, that the world is changing in a way where in London, now, I don't need to speak in English because every shop that I go to, I can converse in order, and I jokingly say this to people, when the British left the subcontinent, they didn't think we'd follow them.

that's what happened. But the thing is, Jeff, how do we build a culture? how are you and I friends? We've been friends because, we've always had each other's back. let you remember. you will remember in 2010 when we drove through the Taliban village before Sunrise to go to that big oil refinery, and you said, I'm not going without you.

Mm You remember that and that, yeah. That's your statement. He said, you, I'm not leaving without you, was your words. Yeah. Yeah. And so what I'm really trying to say is if you take that as an output of behavior, mm-hmm. That builds trust and it builds credibility. If you look at the military, trust, respect, honor, these are big words.

These aren't just words. They are built on practices. If I say to Douglas, I'm going to make sure this happens. Douglas doesn't have to ask me twice, it's done because it's the trust that we have together, and Scott, so forth, everybody on this call. we have a phenomenal relationship that we know that, that even if they, something happens, that each and every person has done their utter best to do that because it's credible actions that build trust.

As the, you said earlier, the experience, the human experience is built about this incremental trust. Our trust model explains that in a lot more detail, but really what I'm trying to say to you is that human, the human experience needs to be about more. Interaction. More execution experiences, more experiences, and we lack human experiences.

My God, I can't wait to get off this thing, because I relish the ability to have human experience. I say to Doug sometimes, Doug, meet me in so and so. We're gonna have a day together and we are just going to sort everything out, And we do because it's human experience, not video experience.

Now, as I said before, the whole thing. That research proves that if we have a call like this today from a creativity point of view or an innovation point of view, we'll create something like [00:30:00] 6.47 ideas. But I actually, if I were it all together in a room, the creativity and innovation and idea exchange moves to something like 11.3.

Absolutely. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that is the difference between success and failure in my book. Especially when you're doing mission critical decisions, whether it's a business, whether it's a family issue, whether it's a taxation or government issue, these are the things that have to be considered and we're not spending enough time in the human experience.

I think I was about to say don't give. Yeah. No, no, no. I've been quite the, effecting our conversation now. Calculating. Thank you, Scott. But for me it's about action. And I wanna share a story. You know, being from South Africa originally, I, I was in the, the pre apartheid era, as a, as a young white South African at school.

And I wouldn't say I was privileged 'cause we came from a very humble background. And, and we, we lived a very humble life. But we, we also [00:31:00] lived in a sheltered life and a segregated life, which was absolutely wrong. And when we came out of apartheid, actually, the best thing that ever happened to me in my life was I actually went to a predominantly black university which was an absolute, two years before that would've been an absolute unacceptable thing.

But it was the best thing for me because it, it just changed my whole perspective on, on, on, on, on people and, people, white people, black people, Indian people. And to this day, one has, I've got wonderful friendships, but one of the most amazing things of my life and talking about leadership was one event that changed a country.

One event, one action, no words. One action changed a country in a in a minute, and that was the day when we came out of, we came out of apartheid and Nelson Mandela was chosen to be our president and. He walked out. And rugby, as you guys know, is one of our passions in South Africa. He came out with the, the Springbok jersey on, and in that moment he united 65 million people.

And I guarantee you, and it wasn't just in that moment when he was the ruling president of South Africa, it was truly a rainbow nation. It was a, a nation that was coming together. It was building amazing things that had mutual respect for each other. And it's certainly, even to this day, it's not a racist country at all.

Even though some think it is, it's absolutely not. People just wanna survive like we all do. For me, unfortunately, when toxic leadership takes over, then you see the unwinding of all that good work. And so I'm really fascinated about is the behavior of public officials, public policy versus private capital.

And there was an example where actually through a, a horrific regime, we, we brought a leader who actually aligned the, the, the, the, the public policy and, and private capital railed behind as one. And actually it was South Africa at that point was on an absolute amazing trajectory. and so for me, unfortunately it wasn't sustainable.

And, and, and hopefully it does get back there, but that's a great example of just. This alignment between, public, policy and private capital and how they can coexist. And I think what we are seeing now, and far touched on it, is this exacerbation and it's a mega trend, is mass migration of people or more torn areas, from, from areas.

And, and some are doing it legitimately, some aren't, but it is becoming a boiling point globally, rightfully or wrongfully are the press steering it up? They absolutely are. we, we've got, uh, a migrant concern issue now at the moment, and I was chatting to someone who's done a tremendous amount of work in the United Nations on this and saying, well, actually people don't realize the, the volumes were double this in the eighties and nineties.

So this has been around for a long time, but what is it? It's that, that voice in the corner of the media that tends to blow it out a proportion. And clearly there's certain agendas in that, but, but the other thing I want to touch on is. I think in all our careers and, and life experiences, I mean, we've been in tough corners together and so far, and Jeff, when you guys were in Pakistan in some tough situations, you had each other's back.

And that's what counts, that's what builds lifelong trust. And it's how do we bring that in business, in society and relationships with the younger generations to show them. Sometimes it's just those simple things of having each other's back and that's all that you count on. and that's what makes the difference.

So just some thoughts on my side on that. No, thank you very much. I like the, um, it, it's kind of as you've got your, I think it's Gottman's definition of trust, which is another one I like is basically, are you there for me at this moment? Mm-hmm. And so trust, trust is contextual and it does change 'cause you trust people in different ways.

And I think it goes back to what your point, Doug, about all the stuff that's in the papers and the, the, the, the information that you have. So I think one thing that is missing for us as people. We, we read the headlines and we don't look at the detail a lot of the time. So we say, oh, we've got a migrant problem.

We've got more than we've ever we've, we've got more than we've had. And he said, well, actually the eighties, nineties we had more or say this, this is the worst. Oh, actually there's more people we've actually dig down into the details and get some facts and work on facts and figures. 'cause what you tend to see now is, I've never seen it before, is now you've got news agents news, well, news outlets, fact checking information that institutions that we should trust are pushing into the public domain.

And why are we having to fact check fact, not fact check. Sorry, fact, there was a C in there. Why are we fact checking information that we should be trusting these institutions? They should be telling us the truth. And that's 'cause it's become sensationalist. And sensationalism has really paid. it, all of this, there's, there's a new channel in Pakistan.

It's one of the biggest new channels in Pakistan. If you hear the music that they have, right, it is anxiety inducing to a level that you wouldn't believe. It's, it's, you cannot mistake it, but that sensationalism works, for them. The only thing is the one, the one thing that I've always seen, I say to people in Pakistan, if you, for for a week turn off your news, news sources, whether it's, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, right?

Turn off your news sources, turn off Twitter, turn off whatever. You'll actually start looking at your neighbors like humans again. you, you will stop looking. you'll be, you'll be looking at people as human beings again, and not just as bad statistics. you won't be looking at things, at the bad in the world.

when we were growing up. We had a world which was, which, like I, I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything, but if I look at my children the way they've grown up, my son just turned 18 yesterday and my daughter's 13., part of my day is spent just worrying about, if they made it home from school, okay.

Or not. And, and they're perfectly fine. They live in a very safe place. They go to a good school, they go to a good place. But all you hear about is acts of intolerance, acts of hate, and, and it pollutes your mind. there if, if there has to be a trust building activity. I think people in the media have to become very, and, and people on social media also have to become very, very sensible about what they're talking about.

Scott, you, and, and you've come up with very good nuggets of, inputs in this conversation. One of the major things that, that we don't, notice is nobody is willing to fact check. Nobody is willing to go inside and do deeper research like we've gotten hostage to 360 characters or whatnot.

Right., and, and that headline's good enough for us. But, going to Douglas's Point, and I think Mr. Mandela is one of the best examples of how to bring a country together. that it, it was actually pretty well immortalized in that movie Invictus. where, where you saw the effort that he would put in from his, within his own community as well, to show them that this was the past.

Can you, I imagine the amount of forgiveness it took a person who'd spent the majority of his life in jail at the hands of a certain people, and to come out and say, okay. Today is zero. We start and we rebuild. And, but if you look at the world right now, do you see how much suffering we have? Do you, do you like, and it's, it's all of these things.

It's, it's the fear of the known, compounded by statistics that nobody's fact checked. it's just create creating a, a level of hysteria, which is very different. the real question is how do we build trust in this environment? I think, I think you make a very valid point. as an example, when you start looking at data, we've got a lot of, what I would say is the data quality that we have is generally not that great.

It's not necessarily clean and therefore you've put data into something. You expect AI and or quant to actually give you data and analysis and, and points. It's going to give you data, which you can't make necessarily a very good informed decision on whether you're a board of directors, whether you're in a business.

and we don't have people at the intellectual capacity for competency to be able to challenge that data because they don't have the upskilling, they don't have necessarily the right skills. They don't have a learning environment or learning culture, knowledge tree knowledge, culture, environment where we're learning fast enough and technology is, is faster than human development in this area, which is a technical problem.

If the data was making better decisions, which enriches our life and enriches the processes and efficiencies of what we do and how we do it, and even to a point of compassion and experiential, we'd be in a different place. So you've got parallel lines working, saying, well, I've got this data, but how much do I trust this?

Well, what's my data trust on this because, or do I have no choice but to accept this data because I haven't got any other ability to challenge this to make a better decision? That's one thing. Like an example, you know, you could have a AI bot on on this interview today. Taking notes doesn't necessarily mean it will give you the depth of what we are discussing today.

That all forms into the experience. So there has to be some radical change around the way we receive information, receive data. And I think, I still believe that, and Doug and I have spent a lot of time with this doing design led thinking innovation, but we always, always, always put people at the center.

Why? Because we understand the value of psychological safety and wellbeing and trust around. We put that together with technology and then grow. You pivot. And the companies that have done that have proved that they've pivoted. So I think there's a lot of, it's an expansive subjects, there's no question about that.

But that hasn't helped and that isn't helping, technology is outpacing. The data and the data isn't trusted and the data doesn't always correlate to real, life situations that people can make better decisions on. That's a good point about thanks I something I think, on that topic, it's something, when we, we know we scratching the surface in terms of ethics around AR and as said quantum, it's around the corner and I don't think any of us really deeply appreciate what that impact is gonna be.

And we still figuring that out. And, and I think the scary thing is we are the ones that are probably more in the know than most so because of what we get exposed to. But, but it does tell you that the world out there is incrediblyuneducated around the impact of these things. And you couple that with.

The big unicorns, social media houses, and they, they prey on your data. They prey on your, your, your human emotion. and that's how they make their money is, is through that deep neuroscience understanding of your world and influencing that, rightfully or wrongfully. And, and I think this is, coming back to pods, when, when our daughter was 13, she was going on 18 so far, I can tell you now you've got two 18 year olds there, even though your daughter's 13, as the girls tend to grow faster.

But, but the influences that the young people have, and I've got access to. It's, they're far more exposed to it, far more quickly than, than when we were growing up. talking about, far, you mentioned the cherished childhoods and, and we all reminisce on those simple days. but we didn't have all this technology and, and corresponding stress.

So it is something that's, it's becoming enormously complex to navigate through this both generationally, technology wise, public policy wise, poli politics, geopolitics wise, it's becoming more and more complex. And I, and I still come back to that, what you say, Jeff, is that human to human interaction and being there for each other and whether it's in business, whether it's in, in your personal relationships, cross borders.

And I think you and father are a great example of lifelong trusted, friends and partners through, through some tough times together. So that's what we need more of and, and as many aspects as we can, can. Something I just wanna add to that. So, okay. And it comes back to what we were saying about human and far, I, I like what you said, said, if we just take away the inputs that we have are outside of our community, it helps us look at our community differently as human beings.

And one of the things that we  did when I was in hostage negotiations, one of the key things is humanize the victim. And I think the noise that we get and the way that social media or the internet and things can, it can very easily dehumanize, but we dehumanize on, fractures and chisholm's like we've had from a British perspective.

You've got remainers and, , those who voted to leave, then you've got the political divide in the Amer America and stuff. So it's very easy for us to then look at, and then you've got us and them from the immigrants and the people who aren't immigrants and stuff. So I think social media's very good at creating a.

Our ident helping us identify with groups. What it then does is helps us dehumanize the other groups. And I think that is one of the key dangers we're having. We, we can get into a group that we identify with, but it makes us, enables us to dehumanize anyone outside of that group, which I think is extraordinarily dangerous.

Got, many years ago, I'll share this story. We came up with a really interesting analogy. I was studying at, at Duke in North Carolina. And over the weeks we, one of the American guys, he said, there's this, this, this fast chicken place, fried chicken, this is the best stuff, and we wound ourselves up for weeks and it was like a three hour drive away and there was like 30 of us and we all eventually said, okay, we're gonna go to this awesome place that you've raved so much about.

And, we were harped up and we all got in cars and drove three hours there. And, expecting the most amazing thing. And when we got that was, it was pretty bad. And we coined a phrase, it was an escalating commitment to a losing cause. And I think that is something that the world is becoming really good at, is, escalating our, our emotional commitment.

And actually it's to a losing course, quite frankly, most of the times it's to a losing course. So, it's just a interesting analogy that you I'd I, I'd like to add to that, and whilst I'm going back in history, I met Nelson Mandela back in 1995 and I was very privileged, to do that. I was working on a project at the time called the One in 10 House, and it was the telecommunication house for the disability.

The reason why I met him was because he stopped what he was doing to actually come over in his Versace shirt and shake my hand. And he wanted me to talk about the project. And it was, as I said, it was everything about the disability. And just to share with you that he had that compassion and that deep understanding of empathy.

And, and he had big vision. And one thing Douglas has taught me, and he is taught me many things, but the one thing he has taught me is the word Ubuntu. And, uh, he's ingrained, he's tried over the years to ingrain that into my DNA. Um, it doesn't work very well when I'm wearing an All Blacks rugby shirt, but it does actually work most of the time.

And I gotta say, the Ubuntu, Something that if we as the world could create a slower movement and we could actually bring what Scott was saying in terms of the small groups and turning those small groups into bigger groups, with Ubuntu, the world would be such a much better place. Absolutely difference.

You know, it's goes to the heart of saying, surely if I make others a better version of themselves, you become a better version. We just had a, we just had a mild earthquake, so everybody's just coming up and asking. It's amazing how parts of the world if that had to happened in the uk. Oh, no, no. Ourselves by this point.

Yeah, no, the last time, the last time it was, uh, it was pretty strong. It was pretty strong. This, this time it was started shaking. I was just waiting for the, God forbid, the second one to,come, the last one literally made the building go left and right. but Bantu is a very strong concept, Jeff. It's a very strong concept.

It's a very strong concept. I, I went to the US for a year. I spent a year in the US back in 97, 98, so like every decade or somehow we ended up in a different location., and in 97, 98. This was the toughest year of my life. it was the toughest year of my life simply because I went to a place in Rhode Island where in the entire year I was only able to make three or four friends.

these were people who were, military kids who'd seen more of the world. they were more tolerant., they were, they were like two, two or three of them are lifelong friends. simply because, at a time when, when I went there, they're only the, the American exposure. To a large extent for somebody with my accent, which is, which at that time wasn't neutral.

It was more, towards the British because having spent, my childhood in, in England, it was more that way. it, it would remind them of a character in a Simpsons cartoon called apu. And APU was a seven 11 store owner. And, it didn't matter to them that I came from, I was speaking their language, fluently or, that I was coming from a much better quality of life with the, with the privileged background that I'd had in Pakistan.

I went to a normal high school, and that was the toughest year because all I was dealing with was ignorance. ignorance, which led to fear, which often resulted in, mimicry and mockery. These three people who'd had more of an experience because their parents had been transferred all over the world.

they, they were, they were American kids, but, but they were really, really, great people. I, I really believe Jeff, when you say, and when Douglas, you say this, also.

Yes, the world is connected, but we need to connect it in a way where the human experience of experiencing people from different backgrounds, is, is really stressed upon. It's, it's something that people, get out and discover. Like Jeff could have been, very, very, reclusive and closed off.

And, and, and, and I've had this privilege, Geoff I don't know if you've met Garfield or not, but Garfield is a person who came to Pakistan. He's a Britisher, came to Pakistan. He used to work for Redley Scott Associates their executive producer. We, he was producing a commercial in Pakistan for the polio program.

And he came to Pakistan and, he just refused a big, big vehicle, an armoured vehicle. And he said, no. We'll, we'll, we'll just try and be, where, where you need us to be and in the type of exposure that you need us to be in. Two visits town. He invested in my company. He'd only spent like six, seven days with me.

And, he's, he's literally grown into an elder brother for me. Like, there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. There's literally nothing in the world that I wouldn't do for him because what I realized was it's not your background. It's not the colour of your skin, it's not your religion. the world is very, very fully becoming polarized towards two kinds of people.

One, the initiated and the tolerant and the other, which are the uninitiated and the intolerant the world has to come down. this divide, the Gulf is becoming bigger and bigger. we've. The more we've, we've got people who are aspiring for bigger things. You will always see the Jeffs and the Fahard and the Douglass and the Scots come together because we realize we can be productive together.

And then there are those who don't realize that this productivity can be unlocked. And then there's a very small, tiny population that feeds off this gulf with media channels. Like Douglas said, all of these new age media, platforms, and, and they feed off the, off of this under the, the garb of freedom of speech, freedom of hate is being, processed with, with freedom.

I've never met you, Scott. I've, I've interacted with Douglas. Geoff has been a, a, a very old friend. It didn't take a lot to have this friendship come about. It just brought, it was brought together by shared ambition. It was the ambition to do good, to be good and to help people who are trying to do good.

it's, it's, it's all of this that has to work out, but there's this very small pick that feeds and keeps on creating this gulf. That reminds me of something,that I was talking to another guy called Scott. Obviously a good guy 'cause his name's Scott. He's, the CEO of CEO of trust builder.

I was talking to him and it was about pe people who see the world. And it comes from negotiation backgrounds. The way I interpret this a little bit, but the zero sum game. The zero sum game where I look after myself at the expense of others and stuff. That is where this trust happens because we try to protect what we've got.

We've got, we see the world and there's is a finite resource and we've gotta fight for our section. We either wanna make it bigger or protect What we have. When trust happens is when we go beyond that and we start, as you said, by bit of forgiveness, but also then the olive tree. So we see the world as a slightly bigger different place.

And when we move from that area of looking after ourselves and seeing things as finite, as a resource, we've got to protect or to keep or to have and move beyond that, into externalizing that and build, what we would say in negotiation is make the pie bigger. Don't argue about the slice of the pie. Just make the pie bigger.

I take that, I take that to one step level. I like the word acceptance. 'cause if I look at anything that ever happens in my life, in my life hasn't always been easy, so loose. once I've accepted. Circumstances, the energetic shift forward, and the ability to trust that my path forward.

there's a great saying by Lazo, which says, the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. And I've always believed that. And you just have this huge energetic shift. And, it's a gut instinct of knowing, but it's when you get to acceptance. 'cause when you accept the circumstances, you're not going back.

You're going forward. And I think there's a lesson here for all of us. We can talk about courageous leadership, we can talk about, energetic leadership. We can talk about all these other leadership, nuances. But the ability to have the knowing to say we have to go forward and we have to go forward is a trusting element within you.

and I want to call it intu. Another one was intuitive leadership. But it's really the ability to go forward. and I said before, acceptance, of the circumstances is the enabler for growth and going forward, I think you, so Jeff, go, I'm sorry. Go. Sorry, Scott. I have a, I have a very funny anecdote.

You know how you do, you go to a different organization for the first time and, you wouldn't, nobody knows you, nobody invites you for lunch. Nobody has, it takes time to, to gel in, right? So, one of my friends really figured out a very nice way to, have an icebreaker over there.

What he would do is, on his desk, the very first day, he would buy a big packet of crisps. Air, open the back, put it in a plate, and keep it out there for anybody. Now, anybody, crisps is something that was always the, that was always something that, that was enticing to people, right? It's, it's a savory snack.

You like it. People invariably come in and they start a conversation, you know, the Sufi way of life. This is exactly how they start by feeding each other. I always imagined if I were, if I were to go and live anywhere else in the world, the first thing that I would do [is try and have a meal for everybody on the street, because those are the people that my children are gonna grow up with.

Those are the people that my family are gonna spend time with. So, Fard, if you go back into English history, okay, and my grandfather was a part of that, okay? In the 1920s, he set up the first Biscuit factory for Hunt and Palmers. It was a ritual. You would bring in, the reason why we have biscuit tins is because no one knows what biscuits are actually inside.

Mm-hmm. And you would always go to somebody's house with biscuits. In fact, it was only, probably we, we abolished biscuits in the meeting room tables. Only a few companies. Now, when Doug and I go into the boardroom, do you actually see a selection of biscuits on the table? Because they, it, they, they weren't, they were the ability to start that conversation.

They, they were, they initiated the conversation, but of course, they're like, oh no, we get rid of the biscuits. What they don't realize is, no disrespect, but I've been in Pakistan where it was Ramadan when everybody's drained at the table, you know, but if you had biscuits there, it would get you through.

But religious purposes, you're not allowed to do that. Right. But, but you see, in England, we would have this ritual of biscuits. And biscuits was actually quite a nice thing. It was always a conversation starter, always. I think, what's your favorite? That's a start, isn't it? What's your favorite on the list?

Best ones, that's all. It's, no, no, no. Can I have some more of the chocolate please? Always. I'm not too fan of the chocolate ones. I like the other ones. So, there you go, Douglas. What I'd just like to bring you in on, and it is, and I could, I do apologize, can never remember what this is. The phrase that you talked, Jeff, which is obviously a, a phrase from your childhood about, that you said is a way of life.

Jeff mentioned it and I you've been to, you've been to, for those of us, 'cause you've explained it to me before, but those of us that were listening who have not heard it, would you mind explaining that concept? I know it's a, a word. Yeah. It doesn't translate into a word in English. It's more of a, a way of thinking.

Yeah, it's, it's a very deep, as far, it's a very deep African proverb and, it's, it, it talks about a, a couple of things. And, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, these were some of the South African icons and Nobel Peace press winners that, that led with this type of philosophy. And they, they literally led with this philosophy that says, always keep the door a job behind you for others.

Always bring others with you. And even if, as Jeff said, even if you walk slower, wait for those, but don't leave them behind. And you become stronger. And there's a wonderful analogy of a farmer and, and a a and a competing farm next door. And, with the wind, what happens is the wind will pick up the grain and, and the, and the pollen, and it'll pollinize the, the, the farm.

And so, when one farmer who, Who has a, has a very good and disciplined way of tending to his crops. And then on the other side, you have a farmer who doesn't. And, and you go to the person who's, who is a very good farmer and say, why do you do it? Why, why do you help your farmer next door?

And he said, well, if I don't help him, his crops aren't gonna be at the right standard, which will eventually affect micros. And I think that's the philosophy of just inclusion, of, of helping others without any expectation in return. in terms of, of that. And I think this is the, Fahd mentioned it in, in that, that that's spirit of doing things where it's actually through kindness.

You lead with kindness and empathy, and you don't expect anything in return because it just, it's just the right thing to do. It brings people together. And so Ubuntu is, is very much that around, bringing everybody with you, going slower, but bringing everybody with you. They all benefit and they all enjoy.

I think it's something that it's of course it's an African proverb, but I think it's a great philosophy in life that allows you to, to see the world differently. And, there's a wonderful book that I've, I've used in my executive mentorship in the past is Viktor Frankl's Man Search For Meaning.

And that's a, a Austrian, a Jewish, Austrian psychologist who was, who had a choice of being incarcerated in an Auschwitz, the concentration camp, or going to American and ploughs his trade as a psychologist. And he chose to go into the concentration camp to look like for his grandparents. And he wrote a book about that experience.

He said, in life, you can, everything can be taken away from you, your right to food, your right to education, everything, even your clothes can be taken away from you. But he said, the one thing that cannot be taken away from you is the fact that you can love a human being. No one can take that away from you.

And it's, I think when in, as we get older in life, we start to stitch all these, these experiences, all these learnings together in a, in a tapestry that defines you as a person, but also hopefully defines and changes positively those around you. that, that they don't, you don't lose the tapestry of your life.

with one's kids and that as well. It's, and I'm, I'm a father. I've got an 18-year-old granddaughter, so I'm slightly ahead of you. and I think that's why I've got a lot more gray hair. But, but it's, it's that. Those gifts in life that we can pass down to our children, our grandchildren, the people that we engage with in business.

and when you have that like-mindedness, especially in business and you have that trust, you do amazing things. That's when I've looked at all the most amazing, deals I've ever worked on as a team, never as an individual. That's when you succeed the most. When you have that spirit belief, camaraderie, that's what makes the difference.

And, and so far you absolutely nailed it earlier. it's really a powerful combination, in both our personal lives as well as our professional lives. I. No far, you're gonna say, I think that would've been a great place to finish. So if you just wanna add on to that, that's fantastic. I think Douglas, Douglas said ev everything impeccably.

Well, I, I just wanted to say that, the world still has a lot of believers. I think every faith on the planet talks about one thing, which unites us all, do unto others as you would have done to yourselves. I think all of the things that we talk about, whether we talk about trust, we talk about love, we talk about security, we talk about, wellbeing.

I think it's in the giving more than the taking. And when you give it more, you receive it as well, and you receive it mult in multifold. So when I, when I look at my customers, when I look at my, employees, when I look at my friends. I always want to be the person, who is, looking at them like he would want his own life to be.

And, and I, I, just something that I think all of our faiths together. nobody can fault this line that do unto others as you would have done to you. Right. It's true. It's true. And Scott, I just wanted to add, , I was at the airport recently picking up a, a copy of the Harvard Business Review.

And when you go into the review, there's a great article there that says we don't need a DEI program to create DEI. I want to add we don't need a trust program, okay. To create trust and impact and togetherness in the world and make the world a safer, better, more enriched place for all of us to not just survive.

To thrive. And I think that's really important. Okay. And I think that's a great thing to, to finish on. So gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure and an interesting conversation as always. And fa, thank you very much for taking time it as the first time guest and to meet.

Thank you much for having me, Scott. A one there you bit of Arabic in for us or so many words. I've traveled for 14 years and only know about 15, which is terrible. I know some. Okay. So on that. So thank you very much for your time, gentlemen. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody.